The Great Macaron: The First Attempt

I recently bought the Bouchon Bakery by Thomas Keller and Sebastien Rouxel and while browsing the beautiful pages of the book I came across the Macaron recipe and was re-inspired to finally attempt them. I have been meaning to make them forever because of the normal reasons that they are so cute and you can make them in a million different flavor and flavor combinations. I was always hesitant because of everything I read about them being so temperamental, but have always wanted to make them so this weekend I decided to just go for it I mean what could really go wrong? Its just food. So before I set out to buy supplies I did some extra research on the web for tips and tricks to make sure I got the best results possible and I found this wonderful post on Macrons by The Brave Tart.  Once I found this recipe and technique I decided to go with it since it was a lot less fussy than the Bouchon version and since I am not a fussy person at all this really appealed a lot to me.

While in this recipe you do not have to age the egg whites I did leave mine out for a bit while I was making french buttercream for the filling. I thought since I am doing this by hand leaving the eggs out a bit might make my whisking job easier. I do not have a stand mixer or a handheld electric mixer so I had to do everything totally by hand which was an effort but not as bad as I would have thought it would be. When piping the cookies out they became a little off shaped because my pastry bag skills need to be improved upon but otherwise they did not come out too bad. The first tray were hollow because I accidentally overcooked them. The cookies were not releasing from the parchment because I accidentally used the less slick side of the parchment which I now know not to do in the future. The second tray of cookies were better in terms of hollowness but the shells cracked, I don’t think I rapped the pan enough and that pan in particular is cheap and has its own issues to begin with.

For this first attempt I did not add any flavoring or coloring to the mix to really focus on the technique. I filled them with a buttercream mixed with a blueberry/ pomegranate preserve for simplicity sake. I can’t wait to make the next round more exciting and even better than the first attempt!

Check out these wonderful posts for some more hints and tricks for Macarons and remember that Macarons are only as scary as you make them out to be and even ‘failure’ is tasty!

Hollow Pursuits by the Brave Tart

How to make macarons: what’s working for me right now by eat. live. travel. write.

Why do my macarons have hollow shells? A work in progress. by eat. live. travel. write.